Page 126 of Awakened Ash and Alchemy

“It was forbidden,” the priest said it as if he’d found the question mildly amusing.

The only reason Zarek’s hands weren’t around this stranger’s throat was that Angela wasn’t afraid. She was furious, though. From what Zarek could tell, she was still searching for answers. It was why this experiment with the Sleep Wizard had been allowed—to find answers.

It just wasn’t working as predicted.

“You had to ask the right questions,” the priest said to Angela, who looked liked like an ordinary man.

Zarek still couldn’t detect any thread of magick from the priest, hitting the same blank wall he got when reaching for Angela’s power source.

“And your answers were always riddles,” said Angela, stepping closer to the priest.

“You always worked them out eventually.”

Before she could get any closer, Zarek blocked her, the protective fire already dancing along his armor—with no warning glow from the staves. “Who are you?”

“Zarek.” Angela’s fingers closed around his. “Stop.”

She looked at him with a certainty that hadn’t been there before she’d gone into that dreamscape. Something had happened. She had found an answer.

“What is it, Angela? Who is he?”

“This is my father.”

FORTY-THREE

“Don’t worry, Zarek, I’m not here to hurt Angela. You can’t hurt me either—none of you have that kind of power over me.” Father Michael held the unbothered ease of a man who had never once needed to raise his voice to fill a room. “My daughter has inherited some of my traits.”

It did nothing to convince the Sworn Exarchs to stand down.

“It’s okay. Really, it is.” Angela held up both hands, hoping they’d lower their weapons.

But then Lord Gellar eased off, just a bit, and the others did the same. But not Zarek.

What was worse, Father Michael ignored them, turning to Angela while nodding in Zarek’s direction. “So, this is the non-friend you were talking about.”

The heat crawled up the back of her neck. “What happened to confessional confidentiality, Father?”

Father Michael’s eyes lit with a telltale spark of amusement, which she’d always found irritating when younger.

“He doesn’t look old enough to be your father,” Martar muttered somewhere behind her.

“Of course, he doesn’t. It seems my dear old dad has this non-aging thing well in hand, don’t you, Father?” The sarcasm was loud and clear. While underneath, she was furious, fighting the urge to scream: how long have you known? And why didn’t you tell me sooner?

Angela didn’t. She’d save the screaming for later, usually inside her car, on a deserted street, when having a terrible day. She certainly wasn’t about to scream or rant in a room that resembled a war zone.

“Who are you?” Zarek still held her hand, and through whatever impossible thread the Claiming had stitched between them, she could feel him—not panicked but drawn taut. Ready to protect her.

But there was also an extra layer to him, something that hadn’t been there before she’d entered that dreamscape. He was still Zarek, but different. It wasn’t just that the staves were gone from his armor, something else had happened. She wanted to ask, but not in front of this crowd, not with everything else going on.

“Angela.” Zarek’s voice dropped.

Didn’t that just relight the fuse on her anger.

“This man is Father Michael. A priest at the church my mother went to.” She looked at the perfect composure of the priest she had always known. Many said he was handsome, but she never got the attraction. “He has been in my life for as long as I can remember.”

Trying to remember all those stories she’d been told about her absent father by her mother, where most people, including herself, had assumed he had passed on.

Which then opened the door on a different load of evidence to assemble, all those times she’d once filed under coincidence. There were a multitude of times in the local coffee shop where Father Michael would be reading a newspaper two tables away whenever she needed coffee and answers.